a dungeon poacher's logbook - entry 1
Slugumus, T1 - Session 1 – Mar 15, 2026
DM Zzarchov – Mortolixo 1 – OSR
with Nona, and 'Kaz'
Exploring Mortolixo & surrounding necropolis. First foray into dungeons beneath the Castle of Despair.
This is my log and it is secret, because they thought I didn't know how to read and cipher, because in their talk you can only read the Rules, but instead I learned to read something else, because I have friends, and my friends know the black speech, so now I write the black text, because I am smart.
Groups are fun. There are three of us, and we are a group, because all dungeon delvers must be in a group, and a group must have a license, because these are the Rules.
(But we do not have a license, because a license costs money, and we do not have money, and this is a secret, and we are not to say that we are actually dungeon poachers!!!, but that is what we are.)
In our group,
- The priest is Nona. Her job is to remember the Rules, and to tell us how this rule is different from the same rule in a different book, and how that matters very much, or sometimes not at all, and to remember who needs which things and where to buy them and why we can't buy them yet, and to make notes on our map, and to keep watch.
- The elf doesn't have a name, or forgot his name, or doesn't want to say his name, or doesn't trust us, or is simply an elf. The priest says this will not do! and she calls him 'Kaz', so we will call him 'Kaz'. His job is to stand in front of doors as they open, and to cut up corpses, and to carry out cunning plans, and to be a narko-primitive (but this last one sounds fake to me).
- And I am Slugumus. My job is to listen very closely, and to open doors and then hide, and to open anything that cannot be opened, and to count torches. And sometimes someone will say 'I have a very good idea!' and then I will say 'aha, but I can do it better!', and then I will do it better than they could have done, because that is also my job.
And we know where there is a dungeon, and we know where there is a secret entrance, and this entrance enters on the third level, and we have a map of the third level, and this is good because the first two levels are full of awful fighting.
But we don't have a secret key to the secret door of the secret entrance to the third level. So we need to meet with the merchant-man who we heard does have a secret key to the secret door of the secret entrance to the third level.
So his name is Bawdhee and he is missing, and they say he was taken by a black carriage, and this is very worrisome because those are the secret police (but everybody knows about them).
So he's probably dead, and they probably dumped his body outside of town, and he's probably rotting in the necropolis right now.
So we wait for dusk and we track the tracks of the black carriages into the necropolis and we find a grave for a lot of people and not just him.
And we have to climb over corpses to find him, but he is there, and we can tell because he's fresh and fat, but he has no key in his hands or in his pockets or in his slippers (which are very nice, so I take them).
So we think a bit, and then we think maybe he swallowed the key, and the elf knows how to butcher a man, which is very suspicious but also very useful, so he opens his guts and feels around and we do find the key, but it turns out it was in his throat all along, tied by a string to a tooth in his mouth.
And this is very funny but the elf is covered in manguts now so we have to wash him off in the stream before going back into town.
We decide not to stay at the Cozy Kitten, which is a fun place, and I'm not sure why, but instead we stay at the Marble Stool, which is a place where you pay a little bit more money for it to be a little bit more boring.
In the morning we want to buy things but we can't, so we walk to the dungeon, which is a long way, to the cave that we know about, which pretends to be for cheeses but it is actually for secret comings and goings, and we open the very secret door.
THE FIRST TORCH - L3, Northeast Quadrant
The corridors are empty and spooky and we march in a formation like a square block (even though there are three of us and that makes a triangle), like a game played with wooden soldiers.
In the first room we find there is a bunch of trash, and there is a chest on the floor, and the chest sits on a tile that moves a little bit, and this is very suspicious, but the elf loops it with a lasso (which must be an elven trick), and we hide in the corridor and pull the chest off the trap, and there is a poof and a pssht and a puff, but we are safe and smart.
We return to our secret cave to check our winnings, and I unlock the chest, but it is full of brass buttons.
And the priest likes buttons, but no one will buy them, so we are still poor.
THE SECOND TORCH - L3, Northeast Quadrant
The room next to the first room is full of wooden casks, and the other room next to the first room is full of trash and dried dog poos, and the other room next to the other rooms is full of an ominous scraping, so we don't open that door yet, and finding all this out takes a while.
But we search the trash and find a crusader's greathelm that was probably once full of pee but now it is not. The elf says he cannot wear it, but not because of the pee, but because of the metal, and that is very funny.
So we peek open the door to the room of the scraping and we see more trash, and we see a dead horse with its guts spread all around, and we see it has gleaming horseshoes, and that is very interesting.
But we are still afraid of the scraping so we fill a barrel with trash and light it on fire and roll it into the room and then we hide in the second trash room (but not this one and not the first one) because we are smart.
And the priest keeps watch at the door, and she says that she sees a very very giant beetle bash the other door down, and it flees into the hallway, and this is worrisome but we are safe.
So we use the barrels (which are just full of water) (or maybe just this one), to put out the fire, and now the helmet smells not so much like pee, and then we take the horseshoes.
THE THIRD TORCH - L3, Center Area
We go to a different area, and there is a room filled with sand, and the sand is full of footprints, and some of them are big but most of them are small, and this is probably where they teach children to be violent. So we search the room, and in the corner of the room the elf finds a broadsword which is very nice, or at least it looks nice to us, and on the south wall we find nothing, and on the east wall we find nothing, and so we leave this room.
The door to the room in the center has a big lock, and that is very interesting, so I unlock the door, and then the elf suggests that maybe we should listen first because he is smart, so we listen, and we hear the black speech, which I understand because I am smart, and probably it is orcs, but they are not my friends, so we decide not to enter, but the door is now unlocked.
The beetle is still somewhere, and this is still very worrisome, and we think maybe we have a clever plan, but then we don't.
THE FOURTH TORCH - L3, Southeast Quadrant
On the other side from the sand room we find a room filled with black mold and bookshelves and black mold growing on the bookshelves. I have a mysterious cloak so I can cover my mouth and root around and maybe this is not-so-smart but I am safe and I find things that are interesting.
There is a magical scroll, and there is a secret door (!!!).
And behind the secret door is a room, and in the room is an altar, and the priest says the altar is against the Rules, and it doesn't look like a normal altar, and sitting on it is a book, which we take, and sitting on the book is a knife, which we also take.
The book is the Tome of Dark Secrets and it is like this: 'One man I know talks very spooky and he sounds like this, and a different man I know talks a different kind of spooky and he sounds like this, and no one can understand them, but I can understand them, and I know the black speech, and now you can understand them because you know the black speech, and we are both very smart.'
And we look all around for two more rooms that might be on the map, but it turns out they are not rooms, they are filled with earth or stone or sand (or the walls are very thick and windowless and whoever lives in the rooms is very lonely), and so we leave because four torches is a lot, because we only bought five.
We head back to our secret cave.
The priest burns up the scroll and this tells us that the horseshoes are Horseshoes of Defense, and the Rules say we should give them to the Duke.
But we will not do this.
Instead we go back to the necropolis and visit the Keeper of the Crypt, who we've heard about before, and he is very old and very clever and very funny, and he buys the Horseshoes of Defense and the Tome of Dark Secrets, and he cackles and he shrieks, and now we can afford a license for two but not for three.
(If we want to follow the Rules...)
The take:
- Tome of Dark Secrets (converted to 400sp)
- Horseshoes of Defense (converted to 1000sp)
- Scroll of Identify (used)
- crusader great helm (piss-stained)
- broadsword (medium | quality)
- athame (bloodstained)
- dead-man's fancy slippers